Up early today, it was a very hot night and difficult to sleep, so I took advantage of the cooler morning breeze at 07:30 to get the mainsail on and up, it took over three hours. The bag / lazy jack system had to be installed as I had removed it for repairs, this is a system that provides a big bag arrangement on the boom, so that if I drop the sail quickly, as I might need to if a squall appears from nowhere, then the sail falls into the bag, guided in by thin ropes on each side of the sail. Without this system, the sail might end up all over the deck, and could get blown over the side, worst case.
Also, despite trying hard to get the battens pockets the same size, the new sail had smaller pockets, so the battens had to be trimmed. There are five battens, made of long fiberglass strips, about 1″ * 1/4″ in cross section and run the full width of the sail at various points. The idea is to keep the sail flat and the correct shape, even if there isn’t that much wind, and when there is a lot of wind, they reduce the flogging in the sail and hence increase its longevity.
I have luff lines, leech lines, cunninghams and maybe other bits of rope hanging out the corners of the sail. I’m supposed to be able to pull , or loosen these little ropes, that act like the string on your swimming trunks, to make small adjustments to the sail shape. Im not a performance sailer, so will have to work these out as we go along.
M5 ( ex Mirabella) is still here, who is rich enough to have a big yacht just sitting there week in week out not earning its keep!
I took this picture today where you can see the plane they keep on board, many big superyachts have a helicopter platform, for the chopper, which makes sense, as how else is the customer going to get from the airport to the boat! but an airplane, really. I’m assuming it’s one that takes off on water, otherwise, it’s a bit of a daft idea without a runway. I suppose it could use harrier vertical takeoff technology.
I read that no decent superyacht is seen out without its own submarine these days, I don’t need one of those, as I keep proving 😉
Paul Collister.